My experiences as an IT professional - Anything that I write here is my personal opinion and should not be officially associated with any other entity

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Linksys loses my business: WRT54GX4 sucks

For Christmas 2006 I purchased a Linksys WRT54GX4 for my dad to replace his older D-Link router that had started having problems.

I got the WRT54GX4 from Amazon for around $80, which is about what I expect to pay for a wireless router.

The router ran fine for a while and then my dad started having issues with his internet (which turned out to be related to his ISP and not to the router). During troubleshooting of the issue, I noticed that his firmware was out of date on the router, so I told him to update it.

Sadly the router update failed and left the router in a "bricked" state. Fine, we figured. My dad got Linksys to send him out a new one and shipped, at his cost, the failed one back.

Fast forward to Sunday, 30 December 2007. I was having problems with the wireless connection to his router. I again checked his firmware and noticed that it was out of date. Again I attempted to update the firmware (and yes I made sure it was the right firmware for the right router) and AGAIN this new router failed to update and ended up bricked.

Linksys wanted to charge us for return shipping of the unit to them, but I told them no way...after sitting on hold while the customer support person tried to reach a supervisor, I looked at my dad and said "this is nuts, I have a plane to catch, let's just get a D-Link".

Which is exactly what I did. I got him a new D-Link DIR-625 "N" class wireless router. Same router that a few friends of mine and I have. It works great.

Needless to say that for making a security product that proved to be unable to accept firmware updates, Linksys has been crossed off my list of vendors to use.

That's right. Because of this, I will no longer be buying Linksys products. Period.

A router is a security device and as such should be kept up to date with the latest vulnerability and bug fixes. A router that cannot be updated is not secure. Period.

The WRT54GX4 is a crappy router and should not be purchased. If you have one, get rid of it with a better product from a better vendor.

Comments

For Christmas 2006 I purchased a Linksys WRT54GX4 for my dad to replace his older D-Link router that had started having problems.

I got the WRT54GX4 from Amazon for around $80, which is about what I expect to pay for a wireless router.

The router ran fine for a while and then my dad started having issues with his internet (which turned out to be related to his ISP and not to the router). During troubleshooting of the issue, I noticed that his firmware was out of date on the router, so I told him to update it.

Sadly the router update failed and left the router in a "bricked" state. Fine, we figured. My dad got Linksys to send him out a new one and shipped, at his cost, the failed one back.

Fast forward to Sunday, 30 December 2007. I was having problems with the wireless connection to his router. I again checked his firmware and noticed that it was out of date. Again I attempted to update the firmware (and yes I made sure it was the right firmware for the right router) and AGAIN this new router failed to update and ended up bricked.

Linksys wanted to charge us for return shipping of the unit to them, but I told them no way...after sitting on hold while the customer support person tried to reach a supervisor, I looked at my dad and said "this is nuts, I have a plane to catch, let's just get a D-Link".

Which is exactly what I did. I got him a new D-Link DIR-625 "N" class wireless router. Same router that a few friends of mine and I have. It works great.

Needless to say that for making a security product that proved to be unable to accept firmware updates, Linksys has been crossed off my list of vendors to use.

That's right. Because of this, I will no longer be buying Linksys products. Period.

A router is a security device and as such should be kept up to date with the latest vulnerability and bug fixes. A router that cannot be updated is not secure. Period.

The WRT54GX4 is a crappy router and should not be purchased. If you have one, get rid of it with a better product from a better vendor.